White House Rep. Sean Spicer Says Hitler Never Used Chemical Weapons

Sean Spicer is The White House press secretary. This means he is essentially the spokesperson for the most powerful branch of government, maybe in the world.

Two days ago, Spicer was giving a statement on President Bashar al-Assad of Syria and the despicable acts of violence Assad has been carrying out against his own people via the use of chemical weapons. During this press conference, Spicer made the risky decision of drawing World War II parallels and even comparing Assad and Hitler (as if the two even need comparing). Now, Sean has made a handful of questionable or just straight up incorrect statements since Trump was elected in November, but I think analysts from both sides of the political spectrum would agree that this was by far the worst misstep.

Not only did he compare Assad and Hitler, but his logic was that Assad is bad–that he is even worse off than Adolf Hitler. Spicer went on to say “You know, you had someone as despicable as Hitler who didn’t even sink to using chemical weapons.”

Now, you probably weren’t a history major in college, but hopefully you know how unbelievably idiotic, insensitive and patently false that statement is. It is common knowledge that Hitler used poison gas to kill literally millions of Jews in the 1940s, so I’m not even really sure how we got to this “alternative fact,” Mr. Spicer. There were audible gasps from the room of reporters as this bizarre, verbal rewriting of history was occurring in front of the camera. A reporter in the first row called him on it the moment that the he opened it up for questions.

Then in true Sean Spicer fashion, he continued digging himself deeper, saying: “I think when you come to sarin gas, he was not using the gas on his own people the same way that Assad is doing.” Once again… false AND irrelevant. The real kicker came in the following sentences where he then referred to Nazi concentration or death camps as “holocaust centers.” I’m not sure you can come back from that one, honestly.

Spicer has since apologized for his wildly uneducated speech and said he “let the President down,” but with politicians from both sides calling for his resignation, it would be nothing short of a miracle if the man retained this position for Trump’s entire term.